Resumen de Giustiniano e la consummatio nostrorum digestorum
In the imperial vision that emerges from novellae, the legislative power has divine origins and the emperor himself is "living law", granted by God to men (Nov. 72 Praef.; 113.1 pr.; 137 praef.; 105,2,4). As is known, the ambitious Justinian project of a universal monarchy relies on the strength of the weapons and the law, and is expressed in topos arma-leges present in some official documents (e.g.. in Const. Summa pr. and in Const. Imperatoriam pr.). Being aware of the supreme role of conditor legum, already a few months after his ascent to the throne Justinian informed the Byzantine world of the start of the famous enterprise that, as he himself stated (Const. Haec pr.), his predecessors had not dared to accomplish. The stated goal was to amputare prolixitatem litium, and to achieve that, the committee responsible for the drafting of the Novus Codex were given wide powers of intervention and modification of the collected rules. This way, the right was being "actualized" for practical purposes, by the systematic manipulation of the legislative texts used in the practice of recitatio. In order to support their own reasons, the parties to a dispute and their defenders could produce in court also the views of the old lawyers according to the criteria established by the 426 law of the quotes, which had been accepted in the first code. In a few months, however, a radical change of perspective concerning the use of the jurists writings takes place. The change is documented by the new program outlined in December 530 by Const. Deo Auctore. Once the parameter of the referral to 'external' sources, to be used according to a rigid mechanical calculation, has been abandoned, it is proposed the idea of an anthology in which a large, but selected, portion of the ancient jurisprudential thought will be transposed. The usage of texts not included in the grand collection will therefore be precluded. It is likely that this idea took form between the spring of 529, after the publication of the first Code, and the autumn of 530, and that it inspired the enactment of Quinquaginta Decision. The work that sees the light on the early 533 is not a simple antiquarian anthology, but rather a regulatory text that marks a sharp break with the past under a specific profile, represented by the authoritative form of an official code for the usage of the ancient ius controversum. Moreover, the selection and processing work that has been done, the consummatio nostrorum digestorum, produces significant effects on the hierarchy of sources applicable in the practice of recitatio.
